Chapter 2Android Studio Basics

WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?

  • How to create an Android Studio project
  • Android project structure
  • Creating and configuring virtual devices
  • Building and running your project via ADB
  • Migrating Android projects from Eclipse IDE

Welcome to Android Studio! Whether you are an Eclipse-based ADT veteran or a total newbie to Android development, you will enjoy Android Studio, which is based on IntelliJ IDEA and offers new tools, a UI editor, a whole new build system, memory/CPU analyzers, and many more new features and functionalities.

After long years of the Eclipse-based ADT plugin suite, Google announced (at Google I/O 2014) that Android Studio would be the official supported IDE for Android Development. Of course, you can still use ADT if you are coming from a strong Eclipse background; however, you will probably face problems that you may need to solve on your own.

As an Eclipse committer who has written code for several Eclipse projects, I preferred to stay with ADT for a long time. However, with the announcement that Android Studio is the official IDE, “resistance is futile.”

If you are new to Android development, it may even be easier to adapt to Android Studio because your previous Eclipse experience might not necessarily help you a lot on the IntelliJ platform.

CREATING A NEW SAMPLE PROJECT

Figure 2.1 shows the welcome screen of Android Studio, which is the first screen you will see when you launch Android Studio. From here, you can start a new project. ...

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